Tools

Upcoming features

The content of this page is still in development.This information is subject to change, or may not feature in the game.

This page is about future updates. For previous updates, please see Version History.

Please remember to cite any sources using the existing formatting.

This is necessary as there is no way of telling if the information is true unless there is evidence to back it up.

Any uncited information will mostly likely be removed until there is a reliable source provided.

This page is a list of future features announced by Starbound's developers. None of these are guaranteed to be included in the game.

Some of the following info hasn't been explicitly stated yet, and are only conjectured based on posts or screenshots from the development team. Item and gameplay names may be especially conjectural, and may not be the official release names.

General

Activity Based Progression: The game will have three main paths of progression that branch off later on, which are activity based paths. Farming, adventuring, and building. The player will have all freedom in choosing what they want to do, so they can choose what they enjoy most and will not be forced to take part in any of these paths to advance through the game.[1]

Beginning Game Progression Changes: In what is the alpha sector in current progression, the player will start in a ship with a broken fuel module, giving them access to only one planet. Through a series of quests, the player will be taught how to grow food, hunt for trophies in dungeons and build the beginning of a settlement. These quests will give pixels upon completion, which the player can use to spend at their ship's 3D printer to produce a new fuel module, allowing them to progress to nearby planets in their starting solar system.[2]

Capture Pods & Mercenaries: May be able to capture NPCs with pods. Summon NPC Mercenaries by using the pod as a beacon.[3]

Dramatic Planet Modification: Not going to be implemented any time soon. Ability for players to modify huge chunks of planets through things like orbital bombardment; removing the entire first layer of a planet and leave behind a lifeless surface.

General Update Content After Upbeat Giraffe: The developers intend to add one new mission, one new biome, and one big new feature per every patch post Upbeat Giraffe update.[5]

Giant Monster Generation: Giant aggressive monsters will generate, and will be four to five times the size of the player. They are planned to replace minibosses, and will have their own death animations.[6]

Macro Terrain Changes: Affect an entire planet’s terrain and weather

Mini-Map: Rotating circular map showing highlights only such as the location of friendly players, spawn points–but no major details. For the details you’d use a mapping item to create a map as you travel.

Missions: Missions to be added to the game, which includes procedurally generated missions given by NPCs, which can entail random mission objectives, conditions, and rewards.[7][8]

Monster Generation: Right now, monster parts just have stat boosts, but eventually rolled monster parts will affect their behavior and abilities.[9] For example, monsters with spider legs can climb walls; fiery monsters inflict burning. You might get a burning spider dropping on you from the ceiling. Projectiles may be tied to specifically generated heads. Biome may influence monster part generation. Examples of large flying and aquatic monster art.[10][11] New unique monster (Poptop).[12]

Monster Spawning Changes: Monsters are now spawned as part of "spawning profiles", which describe what monsters should spawn in what conditions, what density (more? less? little? none?), and are connected to biomes, so certain biomes can now have unique types of procedurally generated monsters, such as a field full of bunnies in a forest.[13][14]

More Vehicles: The next Starbound patch after Upbeat Giraffe is said to be dedicated to having more usable vehicles.[15]

NPC Spawners & Building Logic: NPCs will scan the structures you build around them and the contents of chests; they will have improved inventories/behaviors depending on how valuable their surroundings are.

Racial Armor: Racial abilities will not be inherent but will be tied to racial armor. For example, Avian armor can glide downward.

Revamped Universe Sectors: There will be only three universe sectors. The sector that the majority of the game takes place in, a pvp sector and a creative sector without dangers.[16]

Ship Navigator Changes: Still not set in stone; but the new idea is to give a local map with fog of war. Instead of sector buttons you have to fly out of a sector and into the next one by uncovering more of the star map. The final sector would be infinite.

Smoother Difficulty Curve: Better indication of the difficulty of an area. Difficulty will change within tiers as well as between tiers. There will be fractional difficulty (for example, Difficulty 1.12 in tier 1 would be easier than Difficulty 1.52, while still in T1)

Space Combat: Way in the future, expect space combat and the ability to board other ships.

Spaceship Dungeons: Very large, size of a planet.

Spawn Points: Change spawn points on individual planets.

Stargates: Stargates between planets and eventually between servers.[17][18][19]

Story Missions: Eventually each tier will end with a story mission that ends with the bosses you see now.

Tech Priority: Eventually all techs can be active at once, but a categorization system is in the works to assign priority to conflicting techs, preventing issues. A hotkey to switch the active tech will be added as a temporary workaround until the priority system is completed.

Villager AI: Villagers will aggro when you steal from them and follow you more aggressively.

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